


In the Aftermath: A Letter to Watson

by Hobbitrocious



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: AU, Angst, Backstory, Confessions, Declarations Of Love, Depressed Sherlock, Depression, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), Holmes is so needy and impossible in relationships even Moriarty can't handle him, Internal Monologue, Letters, Love Triangles, M/M, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining Sherlock, Post-Break Up, Pre-AGOS, Pre-Reichenbach, Precise Wording is Precise for Reasons, Unrequited Love, Watson Appreciation, Yet Watson somehow can or could, sad but hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-26 05:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3839602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hobbitrocious/pseuds/Hobbitrocious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pining after a recently married Dr. Watson, Holmes is seduced by an enigmatic older gentleman. Holmes does not discover until after the new relationship is overworn and in shambles the jarring truth that this gentleman is James Moriarty. Learning this sends Holmes into a fierce Black Mood, questioning his own abilities and self-worth.</p><p>This 'fic' is the letter written by Holmes to Watson in the aftermath of both the breakup and Mary's death; it is an attempt by Holmes to console (and apologise to) Watson regarding the seeming futility of the doctor's efforts at consoling Holmes now that they must both haunt Baker Street together again as markedly more morose men.</p><p>Sequel to a story that was only prompted for, never written. (But I invite anyone to go write it!) Set sort of between the two movies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Aftermath: A Letter to Watson

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted as a teaser fill in 2012 for my own prompt at http://shkinkmeme.livejournal.com/9516.html?thread=22307628#t22307628

_To my Watson,_

_I do appreciate that you put forth your best effort to help me - and your efforts do help me, as no one else's have done._

_The snag lies in the fact that you are, as you expressed to me, not an inherently pandering comforter by nature. It seems no one I know really is._

_If someone were, I would still not take easily to comfort across a distance, were it two feet or two hundred miles._

_My problem is that I already know precisely what I must do to further myself along. In my current situation, which, for all its changes, still mimics that of my childhood, I already am reminded and goaded concerning the goals I need to meet._

_As I believe I have made allusions to, I was recognised as an imminently self-reliant and, as I was informed in those days, intelligent youngster. Though in a highly stifled environment, I was essentially left to my own devices in matters not of discipline, religion, or physical health. Even in my mandatory scholastic education, I was capable and received only brief instruction unless I requested further assistance. I was, in sum, a very responsible and obedient child for some time; long enough for emotional suppression to fester and boil until the cap blew off the bottle of my sole remaining outlet, passive aggression._

_It was, as I have told you, a cold and lonely time that still fuels resentment in me. When I began to experience my black moods, I finally drew the attention that I had, by that time, despaired I would never find outside corrections for the misbehaviours I stumbled into. I balked at the sympathy and refused aid, convinced it could not be sincere. Subsequently, it was forced upon me._

_After being ignored for so long and detaching myself for the sake of my own preservation and sanity, and then finding myself suddenly under concerned scrutiny that its givers dared to call love, I became furious at the cumulative irony in my life. My driving wish was to thwart my caregivers, to show them their negligence could not so easily be undone. In this ongoing manner, I learned to lash out mindlessly against beneficial intervention. As their measures grew proportionately stronger, I learned what it was to hate with mad passion._

_Following my more recent dealings with Moriarty, the confidence you have previously seen within me is entirely sapped. I am as I was in pubescence: fearful, timid, self-questioning, and frequently anxious to a point at which vehement inaction is the most condolence I can give myself. Now, as then, my loathing for an authority or a friend who tries to motivate me instead stirs within me the cause to be contrary and to take none of the necessary responsibility._

_Simultaneously, my guilt compounds. A conflicting desire, to be in the world and make use of myself, wars with my need to huddle away until I am scooped up and tended to in the most basic, tender of ways. My heart, such as it is, demands compensation for the deficits of my youth._

_Coinciding with a depressed mood, these battling sides can drive me into a state with an all but total inability to function. You see, now, how I have come so little a ways in all these months you have, so diligently, encouraged me?_

_My dear, wonderful Watson: I know you only mean well. But I am, if not a creature of routine, one of definite habit. I have no routine to speak of these days outside what this stagnating cycle of dark periods and lighter fancies dictates for me. The flow of daily life is a fountain spewing the same putrid, polluted water._

_You push me to better myself, and I can respond only by shunning the thought. It is not your effort that fails, but I who have been repulsively useless. My productivity is rendered impotent by an inability to master the final murky corner of my mind. This corner is littered with shrapnel from my formative years, and even I, the sole person who should truly be able to, cannot begin to fathom from where to start tidying it up._

_Hope is, however, not lost._

_Moriarty could not handle my shortcomings long; this has spoken to me of the severity of the issues I must face. My darkest times, these past months, I have devoted to introspection and self-study. Every fresh tumble into depression, I pray, allows me to glean more about its multifaceted source - something which I hope reveals itself to be its own coexisting weakness through which it may be conquered. It is difficult going, though, as one troubling fact is that the depression causes its own kind of memory-muddling apathy when not mediated by some choice drug or another. Or, perhaps it is just that my body has known too many kinds of interference and the full sharpness of these feelings, as unaltered, is uncharted territory, overwhelming to my faculties._

_My only advice is to tell you what Moriarty discovered the hard way and could not bring himself to accept: I am best dealt with gently, in such trying times, and great deals of patience are required. Expecting me to care for myself in the meantime as a grown, rational person simply exacerbates matters._

_I love you and treasure you, and I am grateful for your intentions in everything you do._

_Snuggles and kisses, and I would be sorry about Gladstone excepting that it made me feel better and he still didn't seem to mind it,  
Your Holmes_


End file.
